by F. William Engdahl
July 9, 2009
The world-renowned Times newspaper of London published
a report in its July 5th edition titled, “Saudis give nod to
Israeli raid on Iran.” The story, were it true, would imply a
dramatic change in Saudi foreign and military policy whose
consequences potentially could lead to a World War III.
A more serious investigation
reveals that there are nasty elements of what military
psychologists and intelligence specialists term “disinformation” at
work trying to foster discord across the Muslim oil-producing
world. The question is Qui Bono? Who ultimately benefits from such
disinformation?
According to the London Times, the flagship paper of the giant
media group owned by naturalized American citizen, Australian media
mogul, Rupert Murdoch, “The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas
intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime
minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets
flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear
sites.”
The London paper went on to report to allege that Meir Dagan, the
head of Israeli’s Mossad intelligence service, had held secret
meetings early this year with leading Saudi officials and that as
well former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had held such secret
talks. Citing an unnamed “diplomatic source” from an unnamed
country, the Times went on to quote, “The Saudis have tacitly
agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a
mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both
Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
Were that report accurate, it would be, excuse the expression, a
bombshell of a nuclear dimension. The story suggests that war
preparations against Iran are very advanced in the wake of the
tumultuous elections in Iran last month in which the conservative
Mahmud Ahmedinejad was declared the victor
against massive opposition protests, protests fanned actively from
outside at a certain point by US Government-linked NGOs and by the
US State Department.
A recent statement by Obama’s Vice President, Joe Biden with ABC's
George Stephanoupolos, where he said in answer to a question:
"Look, Israel can determine for itself — it's a sovereign nation —
what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to
Iran and anyone else." Whether we agree or not? The interviewer
asked. "Whether we agree or not," said the vice president.” That
suggested that the Obama Administration had changed its earlier
reported “veto” over potential Israeli military strike in Iran. It
was the first time a senior Obama administration official left
Israeli the military option against Iran's nuclear
sites.
British intelligence disinfo?
Because the Times story was so important and because the
implications of a “Saudi nod” to Israeli military over-flight en
route to bomb Teheran or Iranian targets could potentially unleash
a Holy War within the one-billion strong Muslim world, I decided to
probe more deeply. What emerged was quite different from the Times
account.
I contacted very reliable sources with extensive involvement in
Saudi Arabia and who have been reliable in the past, to ask whether
the Times story of a secret agreement with Israel over bombing Iran
was accurate. The answer I got back was revealing.
The Times itself cited a denial statement from the Saudi
Government, but in a way to leave the impression it was not
serious, merely covering up the truth of the Times story of
collusion between Israeli intelligence and the Saudi
Kingdom.
According to this Saudi inside confidential source, however, “not
only have we denied it, it would be absolute political suicide to
even contemplate letting the Israelis cross our
airspace!”
That corresponded with my knowledge of years of quiet diplomatic
dialogue between, yes, even Ahmedinejad and the Saudi Royal family.
Indeed, it was reportedly largely due to agreement between Iran’s
Ahmedinejad and the Saudi King Abdullah, during a personal meeting
in Riyadh in March 2007, that agreement was reached to try to
create lessening of tensions between Sunni and Shiite muslim groups
in Iraq. Those talks had more to do, according to on-the-ground
reports, with the dramatic falloff in killings in Iraq than General
Petraeus’ infamous “surge” strategy.
Who is behind the Times?
The Times of London is one of the world’s best known newspapers. In
its better times, during the First and even Second World Wars, it
was the newspaper of record of Britain, comparable to what the New
York Times also once was in the United States. The Times in those
days was one of the most influential propaganda instruments of a
little-known and extremely influential elite group that called
itself the Round Table, as in King Arthur’s legendary Knights of
the Round Table. The Round Table group, initially created out of
the will of British mining magnate and inciter of the 1899 Boer
War, Sir Cecil Rhodes, played a key role in manipulating British
pubic opinion into going to war in 1914 against the German “Hun,”
in a fruitless attempt to save the “English way of life” as they
saw it, to save the declining British
Empire.
Since the newspaper came into financial difficulties in the early
1980’s, its then-owners, the Astor family, sold it and Australian
media czar Rupert Murdoch bought it, placing it under his News
Corporation International which also owns the New York Post, the
San Antonio Star, the Hollywood 20th Century Fox studios, the
right-wing neo-conservative Fox News TV network and until recently
the flagship of US neo-conservative William Kristol, the Weekly
Standard. In 2007 Murdoch added the prestigious Wall Street Journal
to his stable.
The Board of Directors of Murdoch’s News Corp. holding company,
owners of the Times of London, is also interesting. It includes, in
addition to Murdoch as Chairman and CEO, also former Spanish Prime
Minister Jose Maria Aznar, the very conservative and very
controversial friend of Britain’s Tony Blair, who split EU
opposition to the 2003 Iraq War by backing Blair and Bush.
Murdoch’s board also includes Andrew Knight of J. Rothschild
Capital Management, the financial holding of Jacob Lord Rothschild,
the head of the British branch of the legendary financial family.
It also includes Viet D. Dinh who served as an Assistant Attorney
General of the United States from 2001 to 2003, under George W.
Bush, and who was the chief architect of the USA PATRIOT
Act.
To put it mildly, Murdoch’s News Corp. has a distinct political or
geopolitical profile. It is clearly in the neo-conservative war
hawk camp. It clearly backed Tony Blair, who according to London
sources, owed his job to the backing of Murdoch’s Sun tabloid
newspaper in the UK, a paper better known for sensational stories
than for serious analysis. That puts the “impartiality” of Blair
today as official “Envoy of the Quartet” on the Middle East, the
Quartet being the motley combination of the United Nations, the
European Union, the United States, and Russia.
The
controversial John Bolton
It is also notable that in its story of the “Saudi nod to Israel,”
Murdoch’s Times chose to cite the infamous former Bush UN “acting”
Ambassador, neo-conservative John Bolton, who told the Times that
it was “entirely logical” for the Israelis to use Saudi airspace.
The Times wrote, “Bolton, who has talked to several Arab leaders,
added: ‘None of them would say anything about it publicly but they
would certainly acquiesce in an over-flight if the Israelis didn’t
trumpet it as a big success.’ Arab states would condemn a raid when
they spoke at the UN but would be privately relieved to see the
threat of an Iranian bomb removed, he said.”
John Bolton was one of the founding members of the pro-war Project
for the New American Century think-tank along with Dick Cheney,
Paul Wolfowitz, Don Rumsfeld and most of the prominent
neo-conservative hawks of the Bush Administration. As well, Bolton
is alleged to be a member of the ultra-secretive Council for
National Policy which brings the Rev. Moon cult, the Church of
Scientology and the ultra-religious Christian Right under one neat
political umbrella, the heart of the George W. Bush right-wing
political machine. As Bush Administration State Department
official, Bolton was accused by his associates of helping fake
intelligence on Niger yellowcake uranium sales to Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq, a faked intelligence report, aided by Tony Blair’s good
offices, that was falsely cited by Secretary of State Colin Powell
as justification for the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
This time it seems
that the same Bolton and Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London are again
in bed together, this time in an effort to drive a wedge of
distrust across the Muslim oil-producing world by planting
disinformation about an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israeli
military intelligence that never existed.
Cui Bono? By planting a false story
that Saudi Arabia’s worst opponent, Israel, is now its closest
friend, allied with the Netanyahu government against Iran, the
false story spreads and sows distrust that functions along the
classic lines of Roman military strategy: divide and
conquer. Whatever internal disagreement in
foreign policy between the regime of Iran’s Shiite President,
Ahmedinejad and the Sunni Saudi Kingdom, more likely the case is
that the Saudis – no matter how much they disapproved of Iran—would
always side with a fellow Muslim before they would side with Israel
or the US. The Iranian leaders come to Saudi Arabia often; they
don’t hate each other according to well-informed reports from the
region.
There appears to be a split within the Obama Administration over
Iran policy. However if Biden represents the hawk faction that
finds an Israeli military strike an “option” the US Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen has just warned on
national TV, notably on Murdoch’s Fox News TV that any attack
against Iran would be "very destabilizing.” Mullen was quoted by
AFP as saying, “I've been one who has been concerned about a strike
on Iran for some time, because it could be very destabilizing, and
it is the unintended consequences of that which aren't
predictable."
F.
William Engdahl is author of Full Spectrum Dominance:
Totalitarian Democracy in the New World
Order.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14289
The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has
assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a
blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future
raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.
Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad’s director since 2002, held
secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility.
The Israeli press has already carried unconfirmed reports that
high-ranking officials, including Ehud Olmert, the former prime
minister, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. The reports were denied by
Saudi officials....
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle
Plot to sow discord between Saudi and Iran?
The Strategy
of Sowing Discord
Undermine your enemy's ability to fight by secretly
causing discord between him and his friends, allies, advisors,
family, commanders, soldiers, and population. While he is
preoccupied settling internal disputes his ability to attack or
defend, is compromised.
http://www.chinastrategies.com/list%202.htm#
